Corona Virus Listening - is this music any good?

This is a one of Stevie Wonder's classic releases dating from 1973. Who doesn't know the songs Higher Ground, Living For the City, Too High, and Don't You Worry 'Bout a Thing? If you are one of the few that don't know, I entreat you to listen to this recording in one sitting. Why one sitting? Because that's the way Wonder wants you to listen to it. Most of the songs bleed into one another so that one side of an LP (look it up, youngsters) becomes an organic listening experience. What really impressed me about Innervisions  was the variety of genres that Wonder creates. This record is classified in Tom Moon's book as an R&B record but in songs like Visions (one of my favorites) the style is more straight jazz, and All In Love Is Fair  is a beautiful ballad on the pop side. He's Misstra Know-It-All is also more pop than R&B or Jazz. Wonder's flexible voice can sooth and soar but then he'll add some gravel like at the end of Living For the C...

After listening to the over processed and rather artificial sound of Abba it was a real treat to listen to  Cartola, a 1976 release from Brazilian singer/songwriter Angenor de Oliveira. My smile got bigger and bigger as I listened to two guitarists, a bassist,  four varying solo instrumentalists, and the mellifluous baritone of de Oliviera perform gentle, tender, joyous, and infectious sambas. Each song has one instrumentalist, either flute, trombone, sax or bassoon (!) playing a semi-improvised counterpoint to the vocal line that really adds interest to the music. The guitarists play off one another in an invigorating way, sometimes playing vigorous polyrhythms to great effect. Can you tell I loved this album? I dare you to listen to the first track, O Mundo É um Moinho, and not be so entranced that you listen to the rest of the songs. Other favorites tracks are  Minha: Peito Vazio which features a sweet sounding alto sax: the joyous  Aconteceu; and the relaxed...

Tom Moon in the intro to his book writes, "Everything here had to have some incandescent life-changing energy inside it." Whew - that's a tall order! I choose to listen to the first selection in his book; Abba's Gold. I'm glad I listened to it in two sessions because I don't think I could last an hour and 18 minutes straight of Abba. This is pop music, nothing too complicated. The vocal arrangements are great. The electronic sounds started to grate on me as did the vanilla instrumental solos. But this is pop music and overall it's good. I gave each song a rating, 1 - 10, 10 being high. If a selection gets a 9 or higher that means I liked it so much I would listen to again. So, did any of these songs make the grade? Yes! Dancing Queen (9.5) , Take a Chance on Me (9) , and  I have a Dream (9). Voulez-Vouz and The Name of the Game almost made it. The rest were between 6 and 8.5. The average for the whole album is 8. Seems a little high now that I've lis...

There are two books of MUST LISTEN TO THIS BEFORE YOU DIE! (1) 1,000 Recordings to Hear Before You Die by Tom Moon and (2) 1001 Classical Recordings You Must Hear Before You Die edited by Matthew Rye. I own both of them. I will be dipping into both of them at random and then giving my thoughts about what I hear. I will also be dipping into my collection. This is just for fun though listening to bad music isn't much fun. We'll see. Something to do while hiding out from Covid-19.